I also think that there’s a struggle over resources that is creating a cycle of violence that’s going on between western countries and Islamic fundamentalists, and that cycle doesn’t seem like it will be broken anytime soon.

That was not the case, and I knew it wouldn’t be when my teacher paused and took a look at the classroom after the opening slide of the presentation was up. She seemed to be thinking carefully as to what she was going to say. Finally she took a deep breath and asked a simple, but striking question, “How many of you have had or have negative thoughts about Islam or Muslims in general?”

Recently, three Muslim teenage girls from India–Aneeqa Khalid, Noma Nazir, and Farah Deeba–started a rock band called Praagaash, which means “from darkness to light.” They were the only female band in the national Battle of the Bands in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar this past December. The band quickly received a lot of attention, but soon afterwards, their situation took a turn to the worse.

Muslims pray while Christians form a protective human chain around them during a protest against the elimination of a popular fuel subsidy that has doubled the price of gas in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Jan. 10, 2012.

Twenty percent of the U.S. population under the age of 30 is now identifying as religiously unaffiliated- and some of those adults are theists (nones). This fact suggests that faith communities are unable to maintain relationships with their estranged youth communities.

Only a few weeks ago, I sat at my desk with my sparkly mini-Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music on Pandora and unknowingly began singing-a-long while responding to e-mails, when my colleague started laughing and said, “There’s something wonderful about a Muslim singing Christmas carols”.

At the age of 11, when I grumbled about doing homework, Malala voiced her views on women’s education, blogging anonymously to the BBC about life under the Taliban. She experienced the horrors of having the very thing that guaranteed her freedom of mind, slowly leeched away by extremists.